2 dead in Tesla accident "Noone wasdrivingthe car" 15

[MartinLe]

https://www.click2houston.com/news/...er-fiery-tesla-crash-in-spring-officials-say/

“no one was driving” the fully-electric 2019 Tesla when the accident happened. There was a person in the passenger seat of the front of the car and in the rear passenger seat of the car.

the vehicle was traveling at a high speed when it failed to negotiate a cul-de-sac turn, ran off the road and hit the tree.

The brother-in-law of one of the victims said relatives watched the car burn for four hours as authorities tried to tap out the flames.

Authorities said they used 32,000 gallons of water to extinguish the flames because the vehicle’s batteries kept reigniting. At one point, Herman said, deputies had to call Tesla to ask them how to put out the fire in the battery.

 

[TugboatEng]

I was driving highway 17 at 1am on New Year's Day a couple of years back. There was a wrong way driver that got in a head on and killed a bunch of people, shutting down the highway. This forced me to take the side roads. I didn't notice that the road had crossed under the highway at some point so when I got back on I was going in the wrong direction. I was not on the wrong side of the highway but headed in the opposite direction I was intending. That was an eerie feeling knowing what had occurred earlier.

 

[LittleInch]

Keith - You react on pure instinct, but in any other circumstances you might actually be better off T boning the car and taking the front end hit. Cars are now very good at protecting their passengers against from a straight head on type collision with air bags, seat belt tensioners and things like pulling the steering wheel away.

Swerving saved you this time but can create worse incidents. But I'm not having a go - it all happens so fast you react as best you can, but the point is valid above - it's normally only 1-2 seconds notice and if you're just there as "monitor" you probably need 3-4 seconds min to decide something is going wrong as you want the machine to work.

First time I let my car brake hard in adaptive cruise control mode I was hovering right over the brake pedal, but realistically might not have reacted fast enough if it didn't brake in time.

Probably all you really need in those monitor situations is a big red STOP button. Everything else you don't have time to "take control". All you really want the machine to do is stop quickly before you hit something. You can always recover the situation when you've stopped.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[spsalso]

Your job is to sit here and be ready to do whatever it takes to prevent disaster.

We don't know when that might be. Nor do we know the form it will take. It may never happen.

Don't screw up!

No, you don't get a big bonus if you DO save the day--that's your job, isn't it?



spsalso

 

[RedSnake]

Tesla has subsequently agreed to stop allowing video games to be played on vehicle screens while its cars are moving, according to the NHTSA.

Well that is a good start.

And Tesla is recalling more than 475,000 vehicles for others reasons.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/co...million-cars-over-rear-camera-safety-n1286781

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.“
Albert Einstein

 

[Sparweb]

For Model 3 sedans, “the rearview camera cable harness may be damaged by the opening and closing of the trunk lid, preventing the rearview camera image from displaying,”

So... drivers reversing without looking caused crashes in the past... so cameras were placed on the rear to that drivers could watch a screen... until the cameras failed and drivers crashed anyway.

Oh, yeah, who could have seen that coming? (Pun intended, with no apologies).

 

[JohnRBaker]

Here's a new one...

Police stop a car which turns out to be driverless. Then it just drives away.

Question: Who gets the ticket?

Self-Driving Chevy Bolt Gets Pulled Over by Police, Cruise Responds

Even after the cop exited their car, the Bolt EV pulled away, though Cruise says it was on purpose.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/45168...lt-gets-pulled-over-by-police-cruise-responds

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[dik]

That's neat... and a sign of the future.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Do you feel any better?

-Dik

 

[dik]

next thing... a driverless cruiser...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Do you feel any better?

-Dik

 

[CWB1]

I was waiting for Skynet to flash the window with a digital finger.

 

[dik]

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Do you feel any better?

-Dik

 

[byrdj]

today, a Model 3 appeared to be in autopilot behind me. It maintained 1 car length at 45mph. HOWEVER it did not reconize my left turn signal/brake lights.

while It didn't hit me, the passangers took a jolt

 

[IRstuff]

today, a Model 3 appeared to be in autopilot behind me. It maintained 1 car length at 45mph. HOWEVER it did not reconize my left turn signal/brake lights.

Definitely ready for Full Self-Drive mode ;-)

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

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[dik]

Probably woke him up! Whatever happened to the car length distance for every 10mph... with autopilot you don't likely need it, but it seems awfully close at that speed.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Do you feel any better?

-Dik

 

[IRstuff]

Teslas are supposed to keep relatively safe following distances; with computerized response, that'll only cut out maybe a car length, since it's only about 0.5 seconds.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[spsalso]

IF reaction time can be brought to zero, then a self-driving car trailing you should be able to drive at a distance of 6" at 45 mph. Or 85 mph. Included in that claim is that the self-driving car can stop as quickly as you can.

In the classic time-to-stop charts, there is the reaction time and the stopping time. If reaction time goes to zero, that effect drops out. If the stopping time is always as good or better than the preceding vehicle, then there is consequently no need to maintain any spacing at all.


spsalso

 

[IRstuff]

Not every car stops in the same distance, there is some variability. Additionally, if the car in front of you runs into a k-bar that someone dropped, then you'd have to stop in way less than the braking distance.

Additionally, because Teslas don't use even radar anymore, the cameras cannot see change in speed when they too close to the car in front; it's the parallax change that they're sensing, so they need to be back at least a car length.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

 

[GregLocock]

You'd obviously get a more false braking events as you reduce the gap, and once the gap is small enough, say 1.5 car lengths, I can't see any practical advantage of reducing it, unless you are trying to implement caravans (ie nose to tail multiple cars travelling together) for energy saving.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

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[JohnRBaker]

My 2021 GMC Terrain has what they call 'Adaptive Cruise Control' where you set a maximum speed that you wish to travel but as the traffic in front of you slows, the car's systems will automatically keep you a set distance behind the vehicle in front of you. There's a setting allowing you set the safe distance the you wish to keep between you and the slower car in front of you. It has three settings and while I don't know the exact distance, in terms of car lengths, that each setting represents, I know when I first got the car I was conservative and set it to the maximum safe distance. However, during our vacation last year, when to drove from SoCal to Texas and then to Michigan and then back to SoCal, after the first few hundred miles I changed it to the middle setting for a couple of reasons. First, it left too big a gap and people were always pulling in ahead of me which of course, until they got up to the speed of the traffic, my car would slow down so as to maintain the gap. Also, if I was following a car going much slower than I was willing to go and I was being passed by other cars, if after a car passed and I decided to pass as well, if when I moved into the passing lane, the car that had just passed me was less than the set safe distance, the system would actually slow me down as I was trying to pass. Shortening the safe distance setting helped to mitigate these behaviors. Note that the system worked so well that I was tempted to move the distance setting to the shortest, but I haven't tried that one yet, perhaps on our next long trip. Also note that the car has an automatic braking system if the car in front of you starts to slow really quickly and just letting off on the throttle doesn't keep you at the safe distance setting.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[byrdj]

my reason for comment had nothing to do with tesla capibilites, but the inteligance of this owner while operating on a country back road

 

[LittleInch]

My ACC is a bit better as if you pull put and the car just gone past is going faster then it keeps the same speed until you get to a safer distance. You can always override it on the throttle without it cancelling the ACC or complaining. Then goes back relatively gently back to your max speed and keeps going. The brake of course kills the cruise control.

I discovered though that the radar beam is quite narrow and if you're following a motorbike that isn't driving in the centre of the lane it can miss it and decide to accelerate to keep up with the car in front of it or no car. was quite fun when that happened the first time.

Also when you indicate it assume you want to pass the car in front and acclerates....

SO great 95% of the time, but it's a tool. you need to know its limitations. Great in deep fog though - set it at max and it picks up the vehicle in front before you see it.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.